Today was a big day for me, the biggest of my life so far, I thought to myself as I opened one eye and looked at the morning sunshine filtering into the hut. Today I not only turned adult but was also getting married.

“Get up, Orion,” my mother said. “Go fetch water.”

“Okay,” I replied and stepped out of the hut.

“Take this,” she said, putting a clay pitcher near me as I peed in the bush.

When I reached the well — a five-minute walk from the hut — my sister, who’s a year older than me, was taking a bath with my aunt in the lake next to the well. A man, who lived two huts away from ours, was filing water from the well.

“Ready for the big day?” my sister Hera asked me.

“He’s been ready for a long time,” Aunt said.

“Hmm,” Hera concurred, looking at me with her deep-blue